5 ms·

This line of thinking doesn't make much sense with respect to a company as large as Google. The fact that the Google Alerts team has identified and solved a pa

This line of thinking doesn't make much sense with respect to a company as large as Google. The fact that the Google Alerts team has identified and solved a particular problem doesn't really allow us to draw reliable conclusions about what's going on in other parts of the organization. So the question is: Are they not taking greater action against spammers because it would hurt their bottom line? And, if so, is that evil? In particular, leading questions like this strike me as premature.

jdminhbg 16y ago
I'm not at all a Google expert, but it seems unlikely to me that the Alert team has figured out a way to filter crap results and the Search team has not.
- cobralibre 16y ago
  I'm not a Google expert either -- whatever that would mean -- but I've worked in large software organizations. My point was that the linked article naively conceptualizes Google as a unitary entity that either "knows" something or doesn't. As to your point, a software engineering organization releases products that are the results of myriad goals and constraints (requirements, priorities, schedules, bugs, etc.). Products aren't merely reflections of what the engineers can or cannot do. So it's likely that the search team can filter crap results? Is that really all that we need to know before we decide that Google search is intentionally designed to profit from spam?
  - jarin 16y ago
    I have a Ph.D. in Google and I can confirm definitively that Google's development processes are similar to any other large software company.
  - jdminhbg 16y ago
    Whoa, I'm not saying that Google is intentionally profiting from spam. I don't think TFA is even saying that. I think the point is that filtering bad results doesn't seem to be a technical hurdle they can't leap, so we're eliminating one reason Google search results are frequently filled with spammy content farm sites.
- bad_user 16y ago
  Google has to maintain the status of a common carrier (somewhat). If that filter the Alert team came up with triggers a lot of false positives, that would be hurting their business since legitimate websites could get excluded from search results (imagine the backlash). Now I'm not defending them; I actually think they aren't doing it because they don't know how to handle the situation (profits loss versus angry users). But I'm also pretty sure Mr. Obie Fernandez wouldn't like to be dropped off the face of the Internet just because it has ties to Jacksonville (yeah, cheap shot done on purpose: we know how filtering works and how hard to get right it is).
jarin 16y ago
You also gotta remember that Google employees are the kind of people who will stand in front of Mike Arrington's car because he's talking on the phone while driving. I don't think it's very likely that people like that would remain silent about directives to give favorable treatment to spammers.

jdminhbg 16y ago

I'm not at all a Google expert, but it seems unlikely to me that the Alert team has figured out a way to filter crap results and the Search team has not.

cobralibre 16y ago
I'm not a Google expert either -- whatever that would mean -- but I've worked in large software organizations. My point was that the linked article naively conceptualizes Google as a unitary entity that either "knows" something or doesn't. As to your point, a software engineering organization releases products that are the results of myriad goals and constraints (requirements, priorities, schedules, bugs, etc.). Products aren't merely reflections of what the engineers can or cannot do. So it's likely that the search team can filter crap results? Is that really all that we need to know before we decide that Google search is intentionally designed to profit from spam?
- jarin 16y ago
  I have a Ph.D. in Google and I can confirm definitively that Google's development processes are similar to any other large software company.
- jdminhbg 16y ago
  Whoa, I'm not saying that Google is intentionally profiting from spam. I don't think TFA is even saying that. I think the point is that filtering bad results doesn't seem to be a technical hurdle they can't leap, so we're eliminating one reason Google search results are frequently filled with spammy content farm sites.
bad_user 16y ago
Google has to maintain the status of a common carrier (somewhat). If that filter the Alert team came up with triggers a lot of false positives, that would be hurting their business since legitimate websites could get excluded from search results (imagine the backlash). Now I'm not defending them; I actually think they aren't doing it because they don't know how to handle the situation (profits loss versus angry users). But I'm also pretty sure Mr. Obie Fernandez wouldn't like to be dropped off the face of the Internet just because it has ties to Jacksonville (yeah, cheap shot done on purpose: we know how filtering works and how hard to get right it is).

jarin 16y ago

You also gotta remember that Google employees are the kind of people who will stand in front of Mike Arrington's car because he's talking on the phone while driving. I don't think it's very likely that people like that would remain silent about directives to give favorable treatment to spammers.